


Strawberry Fields Forever

by emmerrr



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Farmer Lynch, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 11:26:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19463005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmerrr/pseuds/emmerrr
Summary: Ronan has some unwelcome visitors in his vegetable patch





	Strawberry Fields Forever

Truth be told, Ronan’s not had much luck with the whole fruit and veg aspect of the farm so far.

In fairness, he initially had other more pressing things to concern himself with. Cabeswater 2.0 obviously, the dream cows, not to mention the general repairs/upkeep to the Barns and the land surrounding it that needed to be undertaken. It was a while before Ronan even got a chance to _think_ about turning his attention to the long-forgotten vegetable and fruit patches.

Growing up, his chores had been feeding the animals, collecting eggs, that kind of thing. The fruit and veg was Aurora’s area; she planted everything and tended to everything, watering and trimming and digging wherever necessary. Ronan helped collect the ripened goods, but that was about as far as his expertise went.

Returning to the Barns after his exile and trying to get the fruit and veg patches back to their former glory has been a huge learning curve for him, with incredibly mixed results.

It’s slow going. And Ronan doesn’t have much of a green thumb.

 _Adam_ does. But Adam isn’t always here, and a lot of the time Ronan has to contend with sending snapshots of sorry looking potatoes captioned with a row of angry face emojis and **_parrish help me what am i doing wrong??_ **

Adam’s replies are always predictably dry and sarcastic: **have you tried waiting until they’ve actually finished growing? just a thought.** It makes Ronan laugh and then it makes his heart hurt because he misses Adam more than he ever thought possible.

He _does_ learn, slowly but surely. He knows when the best season is to plant different things, and he knows when they should be ready to harvest. There’s discrepancies for sure, when there hasn’t been enough rain, or when there’s been too much, or when the winter has been too harsh, the summer too hot. But a couple of years into it, and Ronan _sort_ of knows what he’s doing.

His big problem is keeping away anything that wants to eat his produce. It didn’t happen in the first year, so it takes Ronan by surprise the first time he goes down to the veg patches to see that almost all of his cabbages have been destroyed.

“My _cabbages,”_ he says mournfully. “My beautiful cabbages.”

He doesn’t immediately know what’s had them. It’s possible it was Opal — he did catch her digging up and chewing on some of the potatoes once.

(“Don’t eat that,” he’d snapped. “It’s still growing.”

Opal pouted. “But it’s nice. It’s crunchy.”

“It’s fucking _raw,_ you muppet,” Ronan replied, then wondered how and when exactly he’d turned into Gordon Ramsay.)

But Opal insists it wasn’t her, and one morning when Ronan’s in the kitchen making breakfast, she comes in holding a squirming rabbit in her hands.

“Found your veg stealer.”

How she caught it, he’s got absolutely no idea. “Jesus, Opal, put it back outside!”

She rolls her eyes mightily and sets the poor bastard back out on the porch, and Ronan watches as it scampers off across the fields to join its friends.

Adam calls later, and Ronan tells him about it.

_“Maybe there weren’t many in the area last year. Or maybe they’ve only recently realised that there’s a food source for them.”_

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” Ronan sighs. “How do I keep them away?”

_“...Netting of some sort I guess? Put it over your raised beds, it might deter them.”_

So Ronan does just that, over what’s left of his cabbages, and over his carrots too. They’re rabbits after all; rabbits love carrots. Nothing else has been affected so far and he doesn’t want to cover more veg than he has to, because it’s a hassle.

At first, it seems to work. There’s no more assaults on his veg for a couple of weeks, and then Adam’s back for the summer, so Ronan not only has a helping hand, but he’s also in a great mood.

He’s up early most days, doing general farm checks and small chores while Adam’s still sleeping. He likes this hour; he likes the early morning sounds, he likes how fresh the air feels, how the grass is still dewy and how the pink light makes everything seem more beautiful somehow. Like a gift for anyone who’s up this early. Ronan especially likes that when he’s done, he can go back to bed with Adam, happy and content.

This morning, however, he is _not_ happy and content after doing his usual round of the farm and coming across a very unwelcome sight at his vegetable patch.

Ronan crawls back into bed, curling himself around Adam with a huff.

“It happened again.”

Adam replies with a groggy “...Huh?”, which makes sense as Ronan’s just woken him up.

“The fucking rabbits. My turnips, Parrish. My _parsnips.”_

There’s a long silence, in which Ronan realises Adam’s fallen back to sleep. He shakes him.

“I’m up, I’m up,” Adam grumbles, and rolls over so he’s facing Ronan. His eyes are squinting in the low morning light and his brow is furrowed. “It better not be as early as it feels.”

It’s earlier probably, so Ronan kisses him, a consolation prize, then takes Adam’s hand in his own as he launches into a rant about finding the majority of his root vegetable crop absolutely decimated. _Again._

Adam listens, hums sympathetically in all the right places. And then, when Ronan is finished, he says, “Do you even _like_ turnips?”

He doesn’t, as it happens. He likes parsnips marginally better, but only when they’re honey glazed and crispy, verging on burnt. But Aurora always grew them, and there's a farmer's market he can sell them at, so it’s not really the point.

“It’s the principle of the thing.”

Adam smiles, eyes crinkling in amusement. “Not sure if your principles and the principles of rabbits line up all too well.”

“Well apparently fucking not.”

Later, when Adam’s up properly, Ronan takes him out to the vegetable patch to show him.

Hands in pockets, Adam surveys the damage. Then he turns to Ronan and shrugs. “More netting?”

Ronan groans, and Adam laughs and takes his hand. “I’ll help you. C’mon.”

Between the two of them, they cover absolutely all of the raised vegetable beds with netting, even the things they don’t think the rabbits would eat.

“It’s possible that they’ll figure out they can dig underneath to get to the vegetables,” Adam says as they’re finishing up, “but this should at least slow them down enough for you to not take on as much damage in the future.”

This is going to be Ronan’s life now, he thinks. Him versus the rabbits, forever and ever.

“Or you could always dream something,” Adam adds a moment later, and Ronan looks at him.

“Like what?”

“I dunno. A rabbit deterrent spray or something. Nothing harmful to either the rabbits or the veg or people. Just something to make them stay away.”

“...That could work,” Ronan allows.

“I’m sensing a ‘but’ there.”

“I’m sensing a butt too,” Ronan says, easing his hand into Adam’s back pocket and pulling him close with a grin.

Adam laughs into their kiss, and Ronan swallows it up, loving that sound, loving how often he gets to hear that joy and how often he’s the cause of it. Loving Adam Parrish is the best thing he’s ever going to do, and what a life that’s going to be. Ronan can’t wait.

After indulging Ronan for a little while, Adam shifts back, pulling Ronan’s hand out of his pocket. “I’m serious, though,” he says. “What’s the problem?”

Ronan thinks back to his childhood, back to when his father was away for months at a time and his mother tended to the fruit and veg all on her own.

“It feels like cheating somehow,” he says at last. “I don’t know, it sounds stupid.”

“It doesn’t,” Adam says.

“My mom wasn’t a dreamer, she had to figure this all out for herself. No short-cuts. I want—” He breaks off abruptly as grief rises, unbidden, in his throat, choking the words out of him. But Adam is there and he cups Ronan’s face and gently tugs so their foreheads are pressed lightly together.

They stand there, eyes closed, breathing together. And then Adam whispers, “What, Ronan? What do you want?”

He sighs, takes Adam’s hand and kisses it on the palm before letting it go. “I want to do it properly. Like she did. I want to honour that, somehow.”

He still thinks it sounds stupid. What does it matter if he dreams himself up something that can help; he still grew it all by himself. It just doesn’t _sit_ right, and he doesn’t think he can articulate exactly how he feels about it.

But Adam can.

He smiles at Ronan. “You’re a dreamer. But that’s not _all_ you are.”

“No?”

“No,” Adam says, shaking his head. Again, he links his fingers through Ronan’s, and together they look across the sprawling grounds of the Barns, at the vegetable patches, and the cows, and the hay bales that need to be moved. “You’re a farmer. And you did all this yourself.”

“I guess,” he replies, but he’s smiling again. Adam has that effect on him. “You helped.”

“A little,” Adam allows. “Also, I don’t wanna stress you out more but there’s a bunch of birds in that tree and they’re eyeing up your raspberry canes. Strawberries too.”

“They’re _what?”_ Ronan whirls his head around to where Adam’s looking, and there are indeed several small birds darting in and out of the branches of a nearby tree, their attention fixed on the fruit plants. “Oh no, they _can’t_ have my berries, I’m gonna make jam out of these!”

“Netting won’t help here, the birds’ll get caught in it. We’ll have to put cages around the fruit canes so the birds can’t get in at all.”

That becomes their project for the next couple of days; Ronan picks up what’s advertised as bird-proof cages for this exact purpose and he and Adam assemble them until all of the fruit is protected.

It’s a busy couple of days as there’s a lot of fruit to cover, not to mention it’s summer and it’s hot, but it’s not so bad with Adam by his side, and there’s something to be said for a solution you build yourself.

With it all completed, they fall into bed exhausted but pleased with a job well done.

Until the morning, when Ronan goes outside to find that a starling has got inside his ‘bird-proof’ raspberry cage and forgotten how to get out again. He sets it free, but not before he takes a picture to show Adam when he wakes up.

He puts the cage back in place and tries to figure out how the bird got in, how he might be able to prevent it happening in the future.

It’s annoying, he supposes, but Ronan finds himself smiling. Adam’s going to love this. And what is life for, if not for stories to tell the people you love?

He goes back to bed, kisses a half-asleep Adam on the forehead and relishes in the way he snuggles closer, seeking more contact.

“Happy Birthday, babe,” Ronan says, and Adam smiles lazily in response, eyes still closed.

“Thanks.”

Ronan has plans for later in the day, but a lazy morning in bed is definitely what Adam will have in mind. Ronan kisses across his face, counts the freckles, thanks his lucky stars. 

“Fruit still standing?” Adam mumbles.

“Oh, Parrish. You’re not going to _believe_ this.”

**Author's Note:**

> by some happy accident i got this finished in time for adam's birthday so i made it his birthday at the end there to mark the occasion <3


End file.
